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I played with the free version of BeOS at one point at it was quite nice.
It was a web/graphic/video developer's dream: multiple desktops with independent resolution (and I think color level) settings. Oh man.
Yeah, it was quite a neat little OS, but sadly didn't go much of anywhere.

It wasn't for lack of interest. There were local user groups (BUGs?) and (roughly, by memory) about a third of the local small/independent computer shops(the ones who advertised in the local computer mag, anyways) were offering BeOS &/or dual-boot systems -- until Microsoft figured out how to "discourage" that sort of initiative...

the file system was especially interesting. database like capabilities are something i'd really like to have in linux too. i understand that this is much more than just using extended attributes, but i can't find any articles detailing the special features of the BeOS file system.

the only thing stopping me from trying out Haiku is the lack of multiuser support. for me this is a required feature to be able to separate users and also administrative tasks, and in particular, not require administrative privileges for day to day operations.

the way haiku protects users from accidental tampering with the file system for example leaves a lot to be desired:
see http://haiku-os.org/docs/userguide/en/filesystem-layout.html
those warnings give the impression that while it may bot be advisable to rename the system folder it is possible, and allows any user to do it regardless.

with a multiuser system such an action is protected by administrative privileges and i can control who gets those privileges.

When I saw it running originally, it was probably on a very early Pentium and I was quite impressed then.
The same machine did not have enough umph to decode MPEG2 in Windows (95?) without a decoder PCI card.

What was it running on when you previously saw it?

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